3 Comments

First of all this whole notion of “abarundi turakunda ku.” personally bothers me because most of the people throwing that out there cannot pull a statistic proof to back up what they say but of course I understand it’s all part of the art of blogging we must say whatever flows from our noses right?

You asked yourself a question and responded to it. If you look at Burundi’s GDP since 2012, and its growth only at 4% a year with a ratio of 9.85 million people, we can both conclude that this country is indeed poor. Henceforth why the president makes such a long trip to demand aid for Burundi. It would be great if he could only use it wisely. Before 1993 the average Burundian could afford to eat at least 3 times a day but today in 2013, they can only afford to eat once a day (which by the way should be on the president’s priority list instead of playing soccer for example). Nonetheless I am sparked to respond to this blog to stop this clash between the Burundian diaspora and the Burundian residents/citizens. Everyone makes their own choices in life and we are all called to be in different places in various areas around the globe. You want and chose to be in Burundi, good for you if Nadia or Natasha chose to make their lives in Sweden, Paris or elsewhere let them be. To each their own, we all handle pressure our own way so who are we to judge what someone else did to get where they are in life?

Recently in Bujumbura there was a “Tombola” held by the USA in order to win a green card, let me repeat 1 green card. I happened to be downtown at GTC helping a friend with her family pictures and the photographer confessed to me that she had taken about 400 passport pictures in one day because everyone was applying in order to win “a green card” to the USA. I mean 400 people or more were competing for ONE green card and tell me that you if you were able to purchase a ticket and receive a visa to go to the USA you wouldn’t do just about anything to get there? I also heard another girl tell her friend that she went to Canada and her friend was an immigration officer and she was offered the citizenship through her and she refused because she felt that she had to remain true to her roots (although I cannot imagine that being the procedure to obtain citizenship in such countries but hey who knows bottom line is that she went and she came back). What I’m trying to say here is that we need to take our noses out of people’s affairs and be concerned about our own or if we are sooooo worried about it, lets offer more sustainable constructive criticism instead of lashing whatever we feel like lashing just because can wisdom is the key.

Although I am not encouraging dishonesty I’m not encouraging hypocrisy either. Often people hate on what they envy! Let’s quit the games we’re not worried about who lied what to get wherever the question is what are we really worried about?

Hello anonymous reader!
I liked your comment and I would like to express some views regarding some points you brought across.

1. Regarding “abarundi turakunda ku”… well, I feel you on this one, but I would like to remind you that we are in a democracy i.e. when the majority behaves in a certain way, we tend to believe that the whole country behaves the same. Minorities are rarely considered unfortunately, and I’m sure that the writer, although she makes it sound like it’s a case common to all Burundians, is aware that not all Burundians behave like this – since she herself feels that it’s wrong (and she probably never did any of this since she’s pointing fingers at those who do).

2. I don’t feel like the writer was trying to put her nose into people’s affairs. I feel she’s more concerned with people who fraud to get whatever they want in life, then come back to condemn politicians accusing them of corruption and I don’t know what, when they are no different. That’s pure hypocrisy! I hear you when you say that we need to offer constructive criticism, but (unless you felt targetted) there was a lot of constructive criticism in this: if it makes people realise that our politicians are corrupt, not because they have evil spirits in them, but because they’re just humans trying to make a living (the wrong way), then maybe we’ll get to the root of corruption faster. All depends on how you read and understand this text really…

Sorry but i just couldn’t resist making a comment on this post and the comments. It just feels like “la politique de l’autruche”. If anyone wants to be objective and give constructing criticism consider first all the facts not just a part of the truth. People don’t do all of that because they are just liars or thiefs (even if those do exist) but the majority do it because they feel compelled to. The real issue behind and that should be addressed, if really want to raise awareness, is the idea that everyone must go out of our beloved country and live anywhere else they can outside afrika. What happenned to the home sweet home? if you find the answer, you find why they turn to all these lies and fraud. They are just doing what they know they have to do in order to get a stay in a place far away from home. It’s not fraud when not given any other alternative. What are the alternatives of these people you are talking about? if you make an objective analysis of the whole movement, when did it really take off, why burundians do absolutely not want their friends and loved ones to return home. If you find out why they feel compelled to it, you can try solve that and they will never fraud again. I started by saying sorry because i felt really irritated by this post simply because i find it being one of these burundian talks that never lead anywhere. If you really want to solve issues and raise awareness please make a proper analysis of the problem starting by getting all facts not just some, checking the causes and then you can make suggestions.
With all this said i would not lack to acknowledge that i do get your point about people abusing the systems of the welcoming countries. This is another issue which is not to be mixed with that of using fraud to get papers where they need to.